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Construction activities generate overwhelming waste that is typically disposed of in landfills, which has significant environmental consequences and hinders national progress. However, with the appropriate competencies, there is an opportunity to identify construction activities that produce recyclable materials, offering a path to a sustainable future. This study aims to assess the competencies for identifying construction activities that produce recyclable materials. To attain that aim, the study seeks to identify the key competencies and assess the index level of the competencies.

A systematic literature review was conducted, and 20 competencies were identified and categorized into knowledge, skills, and abilities. A questionnaire survey was developed based on the competencies and completed by 101 individuals. The collected data were analyzed using normalized mean analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE).

The results revealed that the key competencies are problem-solving skills, communication skills, skills in providing vocational training, and knowledge of the environmental impacts of construction activities. The FSE ranks the constructs in order of skills, knowledge, and abilities. Also, the FSE illustrated that the overall index level is inclined to be important.

This study leads to saving natural resources, using raw materials efficiently, protecting from environmental pollution, and mitigating resource depletion by providing the index level of the competencies.

The findings can guide professionals in effective waste management, policymakers in creating new policies and regulations, and researchers in compiling a list of competencies for identifying construction activities that produce recyclable materials.

This study aims to assess the competency gap among construction industry professionals concerning the competencies required for identifying construction activities that produce recyclable materials. Accordingly, the study objectives are threefold: to identify key competencies, analyze the disparity between the level of importance and level of competence for each competency, and quantify the criticality of the competency gaps.

A systematic literature review was conducted to identify and categorize 20 competencies into knowledge, skills, and abilities. The competencies formed the basis for a questionnaire survey distributed to construction industry professionals. 120 valid responses were collected and analyzed using mean and normalized values, Wilcoxon signed-ranks test, and competency gap analysis.

The findings highlight eight key competencies: ability to prepare sustainable designs, skills in trading construction waste materials, skills in lean construction techniques, skills in designing out waste in construction activities, knowledge of diagnosing construction waste generation, knowledge of construction-related waste design, knowledge of the practice of sustainable facilities management, and knowledge on the sustainable characteristics of construction activities. Despite their importance, critical competency gaps exist among these key competencies and must be addressed.

This study equips decision-makers with insights to manage natural resources efficiently, offers practitioners a list of key competencies for sustainable project management, and provides researchers with a solid foundation for further investigations to advance sustainability in construction.

The main purpose of this paper is to present lean implementation in hospital supply chain management (HSCM) and propose a new conceptual framework tailored specifically to the needs of Saudi health-care organizations.

This paper starts with an in-depth review of existing frameworks or models for lean implementation in health care in general and in HSCM specifically. Based on the literature studies and taking experts’ opinions into account, a new framework for lean implementation in the Saudi HSCM is presented.

A new lean implementation framework is offered to decision-makers in the health-care organization for implementing a lean approach in HSCM practices.

This study focused on health-care organizations, which were selected from hospitals operated by the Ministry of Health and only those hospitals that are accredited by both the Saudi Central Board for Accreditation of Healthcare Institutions and the Joint Commission International. The framework is limited to Saudi health care.

The lean supply chain management (LSCM) framework is easy to understand and use without much complexity. This simplicity makes the LSCM applicable in health-care settings. Further, LSCM was validated in three different hospitals, and it helped them to identify and improve their non-added activities, thereby readying them for lean deployment in HSCM.

Little attention has been paid to implementing a lean approach by health-care providers in developing countries. This study presents a new framework that is considered the first of its kind for implementing lean in HSCM in Saudi. This framework could help HSCMs’ decision-makers to implement lean successfully in HSCM practices.

Numerous and diverse organizations have implemented lean principles and practices, which concentrate on improving the efficiency of business processes by reducing cost, waste, consumptions and effort. However, previous assessments have not focused on the leanness of the supply chain in a health-care setting. This paper aims to introduce a method for assessing the successful implementation of lean principles and tools in a supply chain. Furthermore, this paper validates the method in a health-care organization.

This paper starts with an extensive literature review on assessing leanness and using multi-grade fuzzy logic. Then, a conceptual model was developed to measure leanness. The conceptual model was validated by discussing the initial version with select academic experts, especially those who deal with leanness in health-care organizations. After responding to the experts’ valuable comments, the health-care organization that is the focus of this case study was chosen based on two criteria. The first criterion was the organization’s ability to participate in the study, and the second was the organization’s commitment to implementing lean principles. These criteria were important to ensure the organization had the necessary foundation for implementing change initiatives such as lean process improvements. Next, a multi-grade (multi-attributes) fuzzy logic was used for leanness measurement. A leanness index was calculated, and the results were validated using experts from the case study organization. Finally, the weaker areas of the organization’s processes were identified to point the way for further improvements.

The assessment indicated that the case study organization is not lean. The organization’s weaker attributes were identified, and improvements have been suggested.

This study focused on a single health-care organization, which was selected from a limited pool of potential organizations, namely, organizations which are accredited by both the Saudi Central Board for Accreditation of Healthcare Institutions and the Joint Commission International. The scope of future research should be extended to multi-case studies to enhance the findings presented in this paper. This paper’s findings can be used to help decision-makers at health-care providers to implement lean thinking in supply chain processes.

This research may be interest to practicing supply chain managers, as it proposes what enablers, factors and attributes should be emphasized in lean implementation. The proposed model can work as an assessment tool to identify the gap between the present level of leanness and the desired leanness state so the health-care organization can identify what can be improved. This model enables decision-makers in hospital supply chain to take suitable actions for improving lean implementation level.

This study makes an original contribution to the body of research concerning lean principles; the study developed a conceptual model for leanness assessment that can be applied to the supply chain of health-care organizations. Indeed, the conceptual model is likely to be useful for assessing leanness outside of the health-care field, which suggests avenues for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the negative aspects of blockchain technology and to shed the light on most productive years, countries, authors, sources and frequent keywords.

A Web of Science bibliographic data set containing 209 journal articles was evaluated using descriptive and network analytics. A two-step process is adopted in this study; descriptive analysis is initially carried out using RStudio to determine the most productive years, nations, sources and authors, and using co-occurrence of keyword analysis in VOSviewer, the most influential keywords are determined.

The findings reveal that 2022 is the most prolific year in terms of number of publications. It is discovered that China tops the list for having published the most articles. Similarly, the most productive authors are Kumar A and Abhishek K.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this bibliometric analysis is unique in that it takes a thorough approach to examine the negative aspects of blockchain technology and identify research trends and offer insights that might guide future research and practical solutions.

This study aims to compare recent topics on value-added tax (VAT) in the European Union (EU) and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), understand the differences in VAT discourses between the two regions and explore the connection between research agendas, institutional legacies and semantic output in the field of VAT in each territory.

A bibliometric study was conducted using R programming. The data were gathered from the Scopus database, which contains 99 English-language publications with publication dates ranging from 1996 to 2022 (87 of which are from the EU and 12 from the GCC). Information about publications, journals, authors and citations is gathered, validated, cross-referenced and analyzed using bibliometric metrics.

The results highlight two ideal research contexts for studying VAT: the EU countries approach VAT research with a centralized, pluralistic and quantitative focus, while the GCC countries adopt a centralized, qualitative and practically oriented approach, highlighting distinct research goals, collaboration styles and institutional legacies. The authors extend their result findings to broader discussions on competing knowledge systems in VAT, the significance of the state and the level of autonomy within tax governance after identifying the most popular issues among scholars working in GCC and EU countries.

Although the focus of this analysis is restricted to the GCC and EU, it includes theoretical recommendations for broadening its application to other nations. Researchers from the GCC and the EU may benefit from this study by gaining more about VAT and being encouraged to share their research with young researchers. The study’s findings are relevant and important for comprehending the comparative state of research on VAT in GCC and EU countries, tax fields, publications and institutions.

This study analyzes the VAT systems of the GCC and the EU while identifying the intellectual structure of the field from each author’s point of view, revealing the scientometrics and informetrics intellectual structures in detail.

Saudi female paramedics face many challenges in the current Saudi emergency medical service (EMS). This study aimed to investigate perceptions of EMS experts, leaders, managers and academics about the challenges faced by Saudi female paramedics in the Saudi Arabian EMS workforce.

A descriptive qualitative research approach was used employing semi-structured face-to-face interviews with seven EMS leaders, managers and academics in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Data were analysed using thematic analysis informed by the work of Braun and Clark.

Three themes emerged from the interviews that described EMS experts' perceptions, namely, cultural and family challenges, the value of Saudi female paramedics in the workforce and workforce issues.

Overall, the interviews revealed that Saudi females faced several challenges that could affect their job duties and capacity to work in the EMS. Currently, Saudi females face difficulties with family, social and religious responsibilities, such as taking care of children and homes. Workforce issues were also considered problems that affect Saudi female paramedics in the workplace, such as physical fitness and psychological burnout. The EMS leaders, managers and academics emphasised that due to the new Saudi 2030 vision, it is expected and recognised that more females need to be employed in the EMS workforce.

This study investigated how the financial expertise of the board of directors, risk management committee (RMC), audit committee (AC) and Shariá Supervisory Board (SSB) influences the risk-taking of Islamic banks.

The study utilized unbalanced panel data for a sample of 43 full-fledged Islamic banks from 15 countries over 12 years (2010–2021). We employed feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) and heteroskedastic panels corrected standard errors (HPCSE) regression regressions as the primary estimation methods and used a two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator for robustness checks.

The results indicate that board financial expertise decreases insolvency and credit risks. Similarly, AC financial expertise and SSB financial expertise reduce insolvency and portfolio risks but increase credit risk. In contrast, RMC financial expertise raises insolvency risk. The remaining relationships are statistically insignificant.

Due to the lack of disclosure regarding the educational and professional background of the board and committee members in the annual reports of some Islamic banks, this research used a sample of only 43 full-fledged Islamic banks operating in fifteen countries from 2010 to 2021.

The findings can assist both local and international regulators in revising corporate governance codes and risk management guidelines in such a way as to ensure that the financial experts appointed to the board, AC, RMC and SSB, are capable of controlling excessive risk-taking behavior in Islamic banks.

This study contributes to the literature by providing comprehensive empirical evidence that corporate governance financial expertise influences the risk-taking behavior of Islamic banks.

This study aims to evaluate the resource curse hypothesis in an oil-dependent economy, Saudi Arabia, through examining the impact of oil price volatility on foreign ownership among Saudi listed firms.

The study analyzes a unique data set of firm-level data on foreign ownership for the period 2009–2015. A multivariate regression model was applied to analyze the relationships under study.

The analysis reveals a negative association between oil price volatility and foreign ownership in firms with high leverage and low stock volatility.

Policymakers are encouraged to develop policies to control shocks in the supply and demand of oil and enforce economic diversification. Investors can better understand the dynamics of an oil-based economy stock market based on the investment behavior of foreign investors and their response to oil price shocks.

This study adds to the literature by analyzing the relationship understudy in an oil-rich and oil-dependent emerging economy, where its critical economic parameters are influenced by oil price volatility and it has the largest and the most liquid stock exchange in the MENA region.